Ever since Spirited Away was the second movie to win the Best Animated Feature award and the first anime (and non-English language) movie to win, anime and animation geeks have been keeping a close eye on this Academy Awards category. The newest change in the rules of the category, amongst other rules changes, were announced, including this death blow for films like Avatar which featured extensive use of new technology: “”Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique.” (Source: ANN)

In the “We Can Do It!” department, Josh Tolentino gave a brief update and provided screenshots from studio Ordet’s Black Rock Shooter, a 50-minute OVA whose source material comes from a one-year old illustration, a song recorded using the Vocaloid software, and an ensuing music video. The OVA will be released in Japan on July 24 as “special pack-in DVD with the newest print editions of Animedia, Hobby Magazine, and Megami. Two questions: 1) If James Cameron combined Vocaloid usage with his mo-cap technology for his next movie, how much money would that make? and 2) Is that really a string bikini top that the underaged-looking protagonist is wearing in the image above? (Source: Japanator.com)

And finally, if you’re a gadget geek and/or a comics geek but wanted to know which of the iPhone or Android apps to download in order to get the most comics for your bucks, Johanna Draper Carlson and Glen Weldon have got you covered with Draper Carlson providing a very succinct update on the status of the currently existing ventures and Weldon providing a very nuanced editorial on the current Digital Age of Comics.Is this enough to put a nail into the coffin of the “local comic book store” or increase comics readership? Let me put it this way: if I had an iPhone or ‘Droid (or an iPad) and knew that I could pay $5 or less for comics, you betcha I’d be reading some of them more often (Source: Comics Worth Reading, NPR’s Monkey See blog)